Hi all This is going to be very vague as I have very little info..... In 1944 the US 83rd battalion ( that’s all I have) were stationed at Keele Hall in Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, they were there for just two months and then went to Normandy on D Day supposedly on a top secret mission. As far as I know that’s the last that was heard of them. I have a photo of one of the members of this battalion and he has no insignia showing although he’s dressed in just shirt and trousers. I’m on an American website so I’ll post this on there too. like I said, very vague so over to the detectives of WW2talk..... thank you, Peter
War Service and National Service - Keele University has HQ of 83rd US Infantry Division (not Battalion) at Keele Hall - they don't seem to have landed on D-Day but came in around the 18th June and around the 27th entered combat - I cant see anything about a top secret mission, but US forces aren't really an area I know so this is just some quick searching. I did look for 83rd Battalion but was struggling to find which Division they were with (83rd Armoured Recce Battalion were 3rd Armoured Div but not in Stoke pre-D-Day)
Thank you for that, it adds more than I knew to start with, to be honest I know nothing about US forces.
Can I suggest contacting the 83rd Infantry Division Association directly. They may be able to help 83rd Infantry Division Association
83rd Infantry Division HQ were at Keele Hall, part of US Third Army, and under the command of VIII Corps based in Cheshire.. This corps was temporarily detached from Third Army and attached to US First Army as one of the earliest reinforcement divisions to land after D Day. It returned to Third Army for the breakout led later by Patton. However Keele Hall was not a large enough site to take 14,000 men in the unit, so they were spread over several sites in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Flintshire. Possibly also south Cheshire. The secret mission might be Operation Fortitude ( south) the plan to deceive the Germans that the landings would be in the Calais area rather than Normandy. It was probable the division knew nothing about that. That is a guess on my part based on the little information provided. Hesketh’s book on Fortitude is best place to read about those machinations. Training areas were limited in size and number in Britain, but one of their sites was Plas Power Wrexham, so they’re likely to have used Ruabon mountain for infantry training .
Yes, it could not have been the "83rd Battalion if it was infantry." Independent infantry battalions were designated with three digit numbers - (e.g. 100th Battalion, consisting of Nissei, later rolled in the 442nd Infantry Regiment). Battalions attached to regiments were numbered with single digits (e.g. 1/119, 1st Battalion of the 119th Infantry Regiment) and were usually numbered 1 through 3
